Editorial: Why an Issue on the New Public Health?

Abstract

In this inaugural issue of the revived journal, Public Health Reviews, we seek to address a wide audience from the myriad disciplines that comprise the workforce of public health. In this effort, we hope to reach public health educators, researchers, students, policy makers, and practitioners worldwide with evidence-based theoretical and experiential knowledge. Applied nationally and internationally, public health has enormous global potential to save lives and improve quality of life if applied equitably throughout the world. The inaugural issue is therefore devoted to the New Public Health, as the basis for improving population health globally.The central idea behind this issue is to focus on some of the major challenges and possibilities for improving health in the coming decades. The New Public Health involves the interdependence of traditional local, state or provincial, national, and global public health initiatives and their societal and political contexts. European societies, as others, face the challenges of ageing populations, increasing costs and rising public and individual expectations. At the same time, there are many social, regional, and transnational disparities.1,2The New Public Health addresses traditional aspects of public health, as well as the great potential for prevention-oriented healthcare systems. The New Public Health seeks to safeguard and improve individual health in the context of social and economic disparities that exist in varying degrees in all countries and regions. Furthering the New Public Health implies crossfertilization between public health protection, health promotion, disease prevention, health maintenance, and environmental health in the context of improvement of societal, economic, industrial and community habitation policies. Management of health systems and resource allocation are crucial to setting priorities in prevention, and the effective organization and provision of health services are a cornerstone of society's responsibility for the health and well-being of the population.The New Public Health is not a new vision of what health should be; it is a strategic and equitable application of current best practices across the broadest aspects of social policy, public health, and healthcare systems. Ultimately, the New Public Health relies on the adoption of effective policies and programs based on the cumulative experience and available scientific evidence. Such programs and policies must be targeted to individuals, to groups at special risk, to communities, and to societies across the globe.In this issue, we seek to present the interdependence of social and health policy with examples illustrating the interconnectedness of healthcare systems issues. The topics included are not encyclopedic of all the vital issues facing public health systems in the 21st century. Many of those that are not included in this first issue will be addressed in later issues of the journal. Accordingly, we start with the application of science to public health practice, as in the case of Helicobacter pylori, and we move on through health systems, organization of public health, chronic diseases, micronutrient deficiencies and infectious diseases.In this issue, we include:Preface,3 and Foreword: Reminiscences of Helicobacter pylori.4 Respectively by Theodore Tulchinsky, Antoine Flahault, and Robin Warren (Nobel Prize 2005, Western Australia), who relates his experience of scientific discovery that was ultimately embraced by medical and public health practitioners and policy makers. This fascinating historical account provides a vivid example of translating science into practice with major impacts on population health and health services.Editorial: Why a journal called Public Health Reviews?5 Antoine Flahault and Linda Fried present the renewal of this journal with a wider international scope, reaching out to a European and worldwide readership.What is the "New Public Health"? …